Hiding from the storm in Patras

By Deborah - The weather forecast promised heavy thunderstorms, lightening and wild winds - not something you want to challenge yourself with on a bike! So we decided to spend some time in the next town (hence all the posts). Patras is a city of about 260,000 people - the 3rd largest city in Greece but it seems to have been claimed by many over the years - Venetians, Byzantines, Romans, Ottomans - truly a mix of ancient super powers! They all left behind a taste of their power which leaves an eclectic European city feel, completely different to Athens. It was fun to explore the cafes and their ancient beginnings but tomorrow we head off again.
The view over Patras from the castle wall


The Greek Orthodox Church - the sign said you had to be ‘dressed decently’ with no hints of what would be decent... I sweated it out with a  polar fleece (also doing the washing while in the city)

Inside was both beautiful and intricate


The prayer altar (yes I read the manual and I was allowed to take photos)

I love his contrariness

The Roman Odean. They found this after the 2nd world war completely covered in soil but was dug out and partially restored. Hard to imagine they had to dig it out when it stands on top of the hill!

The harsh crowd killed me

The port has ferries to Italy from here. Hence it was earlier claimed by the Romans as an outpost. Probably why everyone claimed it at sometime - I feel bad for the Greeks they clearly weren’t warlike enough.

St George’s square in the middle of town... gives you a feel for the place
The narrow little streets have a quiet charm of their own. Everywhere has been tagged adding to the colours of the gardens and rooves.

Thought I’d show you those narrow streets

And cute gardens


Number 360 could possibly be a bad neighbour judging by the shoes hanging on the power line.

I originally thought our apartment was at the top of these stairs...

People tell me I should put more people in my photos but you all only know me and Johan- so creepy tourist shots to come...

 Happy Dutchman after knicking an orange - until he tasted it. Far out very punishingly sour 🤣🤣🤣


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Northern Albania

Image
By Deborah and Johan - We were very impressed by southern Albania. We left Gjirokastër on a high as we chose to walk out of the old City to save our brakes and bums from the cobblestones on a medieval angle (check out the horizontal lines on the wall in this next picture 😳) We knew that biking straight up the west coast of Albania, wasn’t going to be the most scenic route but chose that route because we didn’t want to go through the big ups and downs of the deep valleys in the east. Instead we were aiming for the Northern Alps.  The roads going up the western side really aren’t designed for cycling. Highway 4 started ok, busy but with a wide enough shoulder through the Gjirokastër valley to the coast. The rest of the way via Fierzë, Durrës, Lezhe to Shkodër was pretty horrible and dangerous with heavy traffic and hardly any shoulder to speak off. Unfortunately we didn’t like parts of these few days as a result.   Luckily for some stretches we found a few rural side roads to avoid the
Read more

On our way

Image
By Deborah - So we started biking a few days ago.. getting out of Athens was really good because it went to plan, but really average because they were busy chaotic streets with lots of double parked cars that made it quite hairy passing on a bike in the narrow streets. We caught a ferry to get to the beach part quickly (well also to get over the body of water). It got immediately more low key - thank the gods! First impression was mixed... Greece is full of ruins - modern ruins and ancient ruins. We saw a lot of modern ruins and got chased by a lot of ruined dogs. At this point, I have to talk about the lady that stopped us at lunch, curious where we’re from, she insisted we try the local famous cake - walked into the bakery and bought us one each!! The people make Greece! They are incredibly friendly and giving - it’s overwhelming ❤️. But still I wasn’t convinced the first day nor the second actually. The second day, we biked into the wind amongst huge petrol plants with signs everywh
Read more

Adriatic Coast - Croatia and Slovenia

Image
By Johan - After our side trip to Bosnia and Serbia we returned to the Croatian Coast via the Neretva River Valley - a beautiful flat way to return to the coast; it was an easy enjoyable ride.  We backtracked from Mostar along the Ciro Trail for the first half to Čapljina and then just followed the river out to the border and the coast.    The Croatian Coast is beautiful; mountains dropping into the ocean, crystal clear oceans to swim in and to top it off a myriad of old towns with a mixture of Roman, Venetian and Hungarian architecture.  European summer is in full swing here with calm blue sky’s and 30 to 34 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Too hot to bike really so we stuck to a regime of biking from 7am to 1pm. By that time steam started coming out of our ears and we both got to rage stage so time to set up the tent and dive into the ocean for the afternoon. Not a bad lifestyle at all. Mostly rocky beaches though so don’t forget to bring your beach/sand shoes.  We are not really ci
Read more